Chapter 25
“ T hat’s him, isn’t it?” Veda whispers not-so-subtly.
“Gemma!” he calls, waving at me before standing. And now he’s walking over to us.
I can’t wrap my head around it. He’s here, on my street, at my apartment—which I did not give him the address to. How did he find me? And what’s he going to say? What am I going to say?
“Oh, that’s totally him,” Cassie quips. “Good Lord, you did not do him justice. He’s so much yummier in person.”
“ Guys! ” I plead, begging them to keep it down so he doesn’t hear us.
For whatever reason, we don’t move any closer to him. He’s making his way to us at what feels like a snail’s pace, and I’m just standing there, frozen in place.
“You slept next to him without jumping his bones?” Veda mutters under her breath, putting on a welcoming smile.
“To be fair, she did jump his bones like four days later,” Cassie snickers .
Oh my God.
I shush them as loudly as I can without making it blatantly obvious to Eli that we’re talking about him, just as he reaches us.
“Hi,” he says to me, to which I reply with an equally simple, “Hey.”
And then it’s silent. Neither of us says anything more, the awkwardness growing increasingly unavoidable.
“Ahem,” Cassie breaks the silence, nudging me in the arm.
“Sorry—um,” I stutter. “These are my friends, Veda and Cassie.”
Eli’s gaze shifts over to them, and he holds his hand out. “Pleased to meet you both.”
Veda’s grin is almost too much to bear. “Likewise,” she lilts, shaking his hand.
“You’re Veda? Happy belated,” he says, and I swear I see her blush. Hell, even I do. I can’t believe he remembered her birthday.
He shakes Cassie’s hand next, and then we return to our regularly-scheduled awkward silence. There’s so much I want to say to him, so much I want to ask, but I can’t do it here in the middle of the street.
And then, as if Veda can read my mind (and she most likely can ), she pipes up to come to my aid. “I just remembered, Cassie and I have to be somewhere.”
Cassie looks confused for a moment before it clicks in what Veda’s trying to do. “Yes, right! We have to, uh—”
“Get a haircut,” Veda exclaims, finishing her sentence.
I internally cringe at her obvious lie, but Eli doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he actually looks amused.
“Both of you?” he asks, Veda nodding fervently .
“Have you seen our hair?” She waves around the general direction of their heads. “A complete mess. We’re in dire need of a deep conditioning.”
This, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth. Both of them are having a spectacularly good hair day.
“At the same time?” Eli probes, a cocky smile cracking through his lips.
God, I’ve missed that smile.
“Uh-huh,” Cassie assures, her face terribly unconvincing. “Solidarity, and all that.”
I half-wince-half-chuckle at their shameless effort to get the two of us alone together, but love the hell out of them for it. I mouth a ‘thank you ’ to Veda when Eli’s not looking, earning me a wink in response.
“Well, we’d better get going. We don’t want to late for our appointment !” she states, linking arms with Cassie.
They wave to us as they head down the street, giggling and whispering to each other like we can’t still see them. And suddenly I’m standing alone with Eli.
His eyes bore into me, calmly, kindly. I don’t even know where to start. Has he read the article? Does he know how I feel about him? Or should I just blurt it all out?
“So,” he starts, shoving his hands in his pockets. You’d swear neither of us has had a human conversation before. “Sorry for dropping by like this.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad you did,” I urge, hoping he can tell how much I mean it. “I’m just… not sure how you found me.”
“You said you lived on Claremont.”
“Not exactly a full mailing address. How’d you know which one was my apartment?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “You also mentioned something about lavender.”
“What,” I tease. “Did you just walk up and down the street, looking for a building with lavender outside the window?”
He doesn’t flinch. “Maybe.”
Something hot sears through me, setting my insides on fire.
He remembered. And he came to find me.
I want to tell him everything, to explain myself, but I can’t do it here. This is a ‘sitting-down’ kind of conversation, not one we can have next to a falafel stand.
“Do you want to come inside?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
My cheeks get hot as he follows behind me while I unlock the door, swarms of butterflies filling my stomach when we step inside.
“Welcome to our humble abode,” I say before shutting the door behind him.
He looks around the room, eyes wandering from one area to the next like it’s helping him piece together parts of my life. As if every picture on the wall and decorative pillow on the couch tells him something about me. He’s quiet, observant. Studying me as I set down my purse.
It only makes the butterflies move faster.
“Want some coffee? Our machine is like a thousand years old and pretty much burns every pot, but it’s nothing a crapload of sugar can’t fix,” I babble, trying to work up the courage to tell him what I really want to say.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? It’ll just take a minute, you can make yourself at home.”
I head for the kitchen but get held back when he catches my hand, turning me around .
“Gemma, I don’t need coffee.”
His hand is gentle on mine, his eyes focused. He’s so close I can smell him, that familiar scent of expensive cologne mixed with something warmer. Something softer, something so fundamentally… Eli.
“I read your article,” he says.
I swallow hard, knowing it’s now or never.
Be brave. You can do this.
“I was hoping you would.”
The corner of his mouth quirks up, and I have to force myself not to stare at his lips.
“The conclusion was… interesting.”
“I meant every word of it.”
The pounding in my ears gets louder. There’s a buzzing in my chest, a heat spreading to that frozen bit of my heart. I can feel it start to thaw.
“Eli,” I breathe. “I’m so sorry. For ditching you in the morning, for closing up when you told me how you felt, for letting you walk away… For all of it. You didn’t deserve that.”
His eyes flick between mine, our fingers intertwining as my eyes start to sting. I’m trying to hold back the emotion that crashes into me like tidal waves, but it’s no use. Tears creep up in the corner of my eyes, and I blink hard to stop them from spilling over.
“Hey,” he whispers, his other hand coming up to my face, his thumb rubbing my cheek. “It’s okay. I came on a little strong, I get it.”
“No, it’s not okay. You were perfect, you did nothing wrong. It was all me, and I—I want all of you too. I should have said it when I had the chance.”
The ice in my chest cracks, and heat floods in. It’s melting the frost, melting the part of me that keeps its distance from everyone at all costs. And it feels good.
“Is that so?” he asks, a spark flashing in his eyes.
“Yes. I did that day, and I do now.”
His smile is soft, subtle. Like it’s a secret, just for me. “I didn’t scare you off, then?”
“Maybe a little,” I snivel, laughing despite myself. “And maybe I’m still kind of scared. But it’s only because I don’t want to lose you.”
He pulls me into him, one hand on my waist, the other still softly holding my face, thumb sweeping back and forth on my cheek.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The ice around my heart shatters into a million pieces, an all-encompassing warmth taking its place. I can feel the heat spread to my entire body, out to my fingertips and down to my toes. It feels like slipping into a hot bath after a long day, or stepping in the house after being out in the snow. It’s comfortable, safe. It’s the steadiest I’ve ever felt.
“You’re not..?”
“As long as you don’t go anywhere either,” he promises, and a smile spreads across my face. For all our differences, we have one fundamental thing in common: all our lives, we both wanted to feel needed. To be put first, to feel like what we do and what we want matters. And we’ve finally found that in each other.
“Never.”
His thumb traces down my jaw to catch my chin, tipping it up toward him before his lips meet mine.
The world has never felt more still. It’s just the taste of his mouth, his body against mine, his hands drifting into my hair. I can feel the need in his kiss; it’s almost as much as I need him.
We’re coming together like two opposing magnets, drawing each other in deeper and deeper. It’s impossibly heavy but somehow still tender, like we’re making up for lost time.
“I missed you,” I whisper into his mouth, the ache pouring out of me.
He pulls his face back to watch my eyes, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear.
“Not nearly as much as I missed you.”
He picks me up into his arms, and I melt into him. Being held by Eli feels like nothing can touch me. He’s all around me, all over me, keeping the outside world at bay.
Suddenly we’re moving backward, stumbling onto the couch so that my legs are straddling him as our lips crash together again. His hands slide up under my dress, scraping against my thighs, higher and higher.
I want all of him. Not just his body or that cocky smile or his never-ending compliments. I want everything he is, every single day, and to give everything I am to him.
I can feel him pressing against me under my lap as we start moving in rhythmic motion, our breathing heavy.
‘I’m not going anywhere .’
His words echo in my head, the beautiful sound looping over and over like my favorite song on repeat.
‘I’m not going anywhere .’
It fills me with a peace I’ve never known, and for the first time in my life, I have absolutely no doubt that this is where I’m meant to be.